How Long Is Forever?
by Diana Raven
Summary: In which when they died, they didn't come back. one-shot


**So this is based off of the tv!tt episode "How Long Is Forever." I added Damian at the end because... well, I'm salty that he and Traya aren't friends in continuity though they should be.**

 **Anywho~**

* * *

Slobo had been the first to go. But that one everyone had been there for. They'd made a statue in his honor, wanting to remember him. They'd all been there for that. Though the rest of the world didn't understand the statue, nor who it was honoring, they let the heroes do as they wished. They let him be remembered.

Kon and Bart were next. Their deaths so close together that the grief for each had almost been indistinguishable. The funerals had been nice, and perfect. Nothing at all like the two of them would have wanted. They'd been changed, they'd matured… but they hadn't been who they really were. They were just them, and no one seemed to see that.

Cassie had been next. Tim had gone crazy from their deaths, but Cassie? Cassie was worse. On her gravestone they mentioned that she'd died saving the world. Suicide by world-saving. That was what she had done. That was not what they had put on her tombstone. That was good, no one should be remembered with those words.

Ray had disappeared. Tim didn't know what happened to him, as if the universe just swallowed up his existence. Tim was afraid to give him a tombstone, just in case.

Greta had lived, and Greta had died, and this time Greta had died for good. Cancer. Early onset. Almost meta-humanly quick deterioration. She had loved being alive again so much, and yet she hadn't done the one thing she'd ever wanted to do. She'd never finished high school. She kissed a boy, though. Someone she'd had a crush on after Tim. So, at least she could check that off her bucket list.

Anita, maybe, had been the worst of them. She'd gone out on patrol one day and didn't return. Her Uncle Ish and Cissie's Mom were taking care of the kids now. They had brought them to her funeral, but they hadn't really understood. It had been hard to understand. She'd been protecting some kids, doing what she did best, but she'd been too late, too slow, too clumsy, too careless. Too much of whatever got heroes killed these days. Too much of that.

Cissie might have been the saddest though. She hadn't been killed in her vigilante capacity at all. She'd been signing autographs, having just won her fourth gold medal from the Olympics. A man had come to her signing and began shooting up the place. She hadn't died as a vigilante but she'd killed the man who'd shot her, saving everyone there as the people he'd shot had only received minor injuries. Everyone except her.

"Tim?" The question was quiet. "Tim?" She repeated, walking up to him.

"Fifteen years. I thought-I thought we would all come back. Have a reunion eventually, you know?"

"Fifteen years." Traya repeated. She wrapped an arm around Tim while he cried. "It seems like a lifetime ago."

It was a lifetime ago, in fact, it was eight lifetimes ago.

"Daddy thought you'd be here today. He wanted me to ask you if you wanted to come for dinner."

"I-" Tim tried not to sound like he was blubbering. He had to protect her. They all had tried to protect her. "I don't-"

"C'mon, Tim. When's the last time you had a real meal?" She asked him.

Tim shook his head. He didn't remember. "I have work to do, but thank you, Trays. Tell your father… tell him thank you from me." He pulled away from her and began walking.

"They're all worried, Tim!" She called after him. "Uncle Clark, Uncle Bruce, Aunt Diana… they're all worried."

"Tell them not to."

"Tim, you haven't-"

"They don't have to worry, Traya. I'm fine. I'm always fine."

"Tim, please, we're your friends. Your family. Please, lean on us. Please, Tim." She begged. "I'm worried too."

He turned and walked back towards her. He placed a kiss against her hair.

"You don't have to worry. I'm not going anywhere. I promise." He said. "I'll be here for forever."

* * *

"Traya, come on."

"No."

"Traya, the day is over. We must return to our car before they lock the gates for the night."

"No!"

"He was my brother, Traya. I know what you're feeling, but we can mourn them in the car."

"He said he'd be here for forever."

"And how long is forever supposed to be, Traya?"

"I don't know..."

Damian pulled her into a hug while she cried, her tears fresh. Every time he thought she was finished she would burst into tears again. Damn them for loving her so and damn her for loving them back, if this is what love did to her.

When she finished he whispered gently, "come now, Traya. We must leave."

"It's their twentieth anniversary, you know." Traya mumbled as her friend led her to their car.

"Who's twentieth anniversary?"

"The team's. Young Justice's. Twenty years ago today, Greta was turned back into a human, Slobo died, and Young Justice ended. They were my first real friends. They really cared for me."

"We all really care for you, Traya." Damian said.

Traya shook her head as she entered the car and plugged in her seat-belt. Damian closed her door and walked around the car to get into the driver's seat. She laid her head against the glass of the window, watching the gravestones and statue. Unable to look away. "Not like this. This was… we were young, and this, _this_ was just us."


End file.
